2021 – 31 (Landrues)
An artist’s production is in part a reflection of his or her personal history. Born in Algeria at the beginning of the war of independence, the artist lived in an environment that has now disappeared. Exile to metropolitan France at the time of Algerian independence was the occasion of a particular experience, being a foreigner in one’s own country, “french” in Algeria and then “pied-noir” in France, in both cases a “foreigner”. This experience has been essential for the development of his artistic work. The latter was based mainly on a question : how to make the same and the different coexist ? This disjunction was first expressed in an abstract and then figurative register. This allows him today, notably through the human figure, to establish a “unity”, that of the subject, which can be put in tension by the painting itself through several aesthetics, several techniques, several spaces.
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Marc Petrusa is a French artist born in 1954.
After a degree in architecture, he chose to devote himself to art. At the same time, he leads a double career as a teacher and an artist.
Mainly focused on painting, his work also approaches installation and sculpture. The works, often of large format, mix several techniques and this characteristic is the image of the artist’s research.
Indeed, heterogeneity is the heart of his work. At a time when the notion of the individual is being questioned and the self appears to be an unstable, even indefinite construction, his work is an echo of this.
Each of his works could be seen as an Exquisite Corpse, except that this game, invented by the surrealists, requires several individuals. Here, conceived by a single artist, the paintings install a strange climate due to the disparity of the elements. The artist does not seek a unique and recognizable way of painting: each creation is presented as the unstable sum of several approaches.
The motifs represented impose themselves at the end of a gestation that combines chance, found images and technical experiments. Accessory to the importance that the artist gives to the painting itself, they are nevertheless essential to the structure of the work. Now figurative, they refer to identifiable types and replace the abstract motifs formerly used.
Neither image, nor collage, the work installs a precarious unity, that of the subject, endangered by the painting itself.
Marc Petrusa works in Paris and in the Sarthe region. His works are mainly found in private collections in France and the United States.
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Exhibitions :
2024. Exposition personnelle, Anima, Caveau des Récollets. Château-du-Loir.
2024. Exposition collective. Art@KerBaskiou. Manoir de KerBaskiou. Pluguffan.
2022. Exposition collective. Galerie OpenBach. Un certain surréalisme contemporain. Paris.
2021. Exposition collective. Morpho-Quai36, Part de là, le portrait. Musée Pierre Cardin. Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine.
2020. Exposition collective. Maison Contemporain #3, Galerie Bertrand Grimond. Paris.
1994. Exposition personnelle, dans la voiture, Le Marais, Paris,
1993. Exposition collective, Images en scène, Palais de Tokyo. Paris.
1993. Salon de Montrouge.
1991. Exposition collective, Le ressort de la créativité, Paris, Chambéry, Bielefeld.
1988. Exposition personnelle, Saisi. Musée des Beaux-arts d’Angoulême.
Publications :
2021. www.neworleansreview.org – Spray It; Don’t Say It. Art column by Emily Farranto.
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For the curious, here is a link to a beginner’s site where my older works are kept.
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